The Gender End by Bella Forrest (the giving tree read aloud TXT) 📕

“She knows someone’s here,” I said. “We need to be careful—we don’t want to scare her.”

The car stopped, and Ms. Dale killed the engine. “The rest of us will stay on the other side of the cars. You, Violet, and Morgan introduce us.”

“Sounds good,” I said. “Thomas?”

The man grabbed his handheld and hopped out, and I followed right behind him. I closed the door as Thomas moved around to the other side, where Ms. Dale was. Violet slipped her hand into mine, and we moved to the second car, where Morgan was getting out.

“I should go up there first,” she said. “I met her when I was a kid. I mean, she would come by the palace a lot to advise Mother.”

“We agree, but we should come with you, so you can introduce us to her slowly,” Violet suggested.

“That’s a good idea,” she said, and Violet chuckled.

“It was Ms. Dale’s, of course.”

Morgan smiled as she pushed past us, heading toward the house. The light over the porch came on and the door swung open, revealing a very short, slightly stooped old woman wearing an ankle-length white nightgown, her white hair falling straight down her back in a long trail. She seemed frail, her skin translucent and spotted with liver spots, but her hands were steady—and so was the big shotgun cradled in them. She already had the stock on her shoulder, but the barrel was pointing down, for the moment.

“Who the hell are you, and what are you doing on my property?” she demanded in a surprisingly strong and loud voice.

“Alyssa?” Morgan said softly, taking a slow step forward and holding her hands up. “It’s me, Morgana. I’m Rina’s sixth daughter. Take a minute. I’m wearing a disguise. It was… hard to get here to you. We had to take precautions.”

Alyssa blinked and frowned, the lines in her face becoming more pronounced. “Morgana? What are you doing here?”

“You can call me Morgan, please. And I’m here because… because I have friends here from Patrus. We’ve been on the other side of this war, and we have something big, news that we want you to hear first, before anybody else. We’re not here to hurt you. We need your help. Please listen to our story, so you can understand why we chose to come to you.”

Alyssa’s frown deepened, and her brown eyes flicked to Violet and me, and then past us to the six others standing behind us. “They’re all Patrians?”

“Actually, I’m not,” Violet announced softly. “I’m Violet Bates—the name might sound familiar to you. This is my husband, Viggo Croft. He is Patrian, but Ms. Dale there isn’t. Neither is Owen—he’s Matrian born. The others are mostly Patrian.”

Alyssa blinked and gave us a hard look. “Huh,” she said after a moment. “Well isn’t that interesting. Come inside. There should be enough seats for you all in the parlor. I’ll put on some tea. Just make sure you wipe your feet on the mat.”

She disappeared into the house before I could stop her, so I tried to hurry my steps while staying nonchalant, not entirely certain I should let her out of my sight. I hadn’t known what to expect from this woman earlier—and I still wasn’t quite sure now.

OceanofPDF.com

26

OceanofPDF.com

Viggo

For an elderly woman, Alyssa was quick, and by the time I went down the hall and followed her into the kitchen, she was already running water from the tap into a large metal kettle. She shot a glance over her shoulder at me, and then stepped back.

“Do you mind?” she asked.

I moved forward to help and waited for the faucet to finish filling up the kettle. Nodding, she stepped to one side and began reaching into cabinets, pulling out teacups with saucers. Her movements were practiced, as if this encounter hadn’t been entirely unexpected.

“I’ve heard about you,” she said as she moved, the clinking of ceramics filling the air.

I shut off the water and picked up the kettle. “Oh?”

“Not very much. I retired when Rina was still queen, so I stopped getting all the juicy details quite a while ago. But I have a few contacts in Patrus. I was consulted about the death of your wife, Miriam, actually.”

“Consulted?” I turned from where I had just placed the pot on the stove, gaping at her. “You were consulted?”

“Sorry. That wasn’t the best term, was it? But yes. I was, for lack of a better word, consulted. Rina had already petitioned the king, as was her diplomatic right as queen, to stop the execution—no official power in that, sadly; it’s just a statement in the end—but she wanted my thoughts on whether we should demand an inquiry into the event. To see if there was any foul play on your part.”

There had been, but it wasn’t in the way she intended. “And?”

She looked up from spooning sugar into a serving bowl and sighed, placing the spoon down. “I worked very hard to establish more rights for Patrian husbands in Matrus. It’s one of the things that made me popular. Yet as much as I did, it never seemed like enough. So I fought for other things: prison reforms, improving the conditions of work camps, restructuring the orphanages… I’ve done a lot for Matrus. But one thing I have never, ever done, is take a step into Patrus. Do you know why that is?”

“No, and I’m not sure I’m going to like your answer.”

“You’d be surprised. The truth is… my late husband was Patrian, and, much like you, very forward thinking, and he was adamant that I never go. Feared the idea, really. He knew that if I went there, even if only to make him feel more comfortable, I would never be able to adjust to the strict laws the Patrian government had designed to keep women subordinate. Eventually, I would fall prey to something, or say something considered out of line, or… get caught up in